The Answer To William F. Buckley's Why Don T We Complain

The Answer to William F. Buckley’s “Why Don’t We Complain?”
William F. Buckley created an essay in 1961 capturing the reluctance of “todays” society to complain about the things that things that are irksome. He divulges his opinion on why Americans are so unwilling to share their opinion on matters that are concerning to them regardless of how trivial the may seem, or how enlarged the situation may be. Buckley describes several accounts in his essay from the temperature on a train not being the ideal setting, the strains of having to deal with a blurry picture at the movies, and the failures of a waitress to respond to his needs of more milk with his breakfast. He also speaks about having to take an airline attendances words as only script

while he waits for his tray to be removed from his lap before continuing his writing, and awaiting a tool at a ski counter to make his own adjustments as he watches the worker sit and smoke. Buckley summarizes his experiences to share his opinion on why people, including himself, choose to shy away from the confrontation that is usually brought on by a simple complaint. But what are the true reasons for ones inability to complain in even the simplest of situations? William F. Buckley argues the answer to his own titled question within his essay being that; one: most people are far too reluctant to create negative attention to themselves; two: people always expect that someone else will speak up; and three: even if one voices their concern for a resolve more often than not the resolve is ignored or does not fall in line with the normal flow of things.
The very first experience Buckley shares with his readers is his commute on an overly crowded train where the temperature was exceedingly hot for the bulk of passengers. He witnessed his own transformation by losing his overcoat, then his jacket, and later his tie only to notice “that the car was flecked with the white shirts of the passengers” (7). He recounts his thoughts as to why he or anyone else didn’t just let the conductor know their discomfort and attributed this discomfort to a rational explanation of an overstocked furnace, valve turned to high, or a maladjusted thermostat (29). All of these reasons being rational thoughts yet no one spoke up to have them investigated and corrected. Buckley’s reasoning behind this hesitation is simply due to the self-preservation to not create negative situation. We as a society have become increasingly anxious to be unobtrusive and make our voices heard (59). He suggests that people are afraid to speak their mind in fear of the reprisal or the negative attention it may cause. Furthermore, he seems to suggest that not everyone is willing to support one that voices concern even if they are suffering the same fate.
So let’s talk about that last comment.

Buckley expounds on that same idea in his second reasoning as to why we don’t complain. Buckley tells of his outing to a movie with his wife. The picture was out of focus and immediately he divulges to his wife that is an irritating circumstance for him, while she simply replies in a manner to quiet him. During the entire movie the picture remains blurry and Buckley imagines throughout that surely someone will speak up. He has been hushed by his wife and left with the self-control of not embarrassing her with his complaint, but he can’t help but wonder why no one else is speaking up. He shares that in his opinion that someone connected to the theatre, at some point, would correct the error (45). If this wasn’t to happen then surely others are having the same concern and someone closer to the staff in the back would make the complaint on behalf of the rest of the patrons (46). And if both of these fail, attributed to his own personal anxiety over the situation, the entire crowd would eventually rally behind one another and erupt in chaos demanding its correction (48-49). However, none of these three options happen. Why didn’t they happen? Buckley advocates this failure on the groups’ part to the ideal that “everyone was expecting someone else to take the initiative…” (54). Coupled with sulking away from creating one’s own demise dealing with a negative situation, everyone seems to wait for someone else to raise the issue before speaking

out and jumping on the chance to correct a disservice.
Lastly, Buckley contributes societies hesitance to speaking out due to the notion that nothing would be done about it anyway.

He shares this opinion through two of his pooled examples in his essay. The first being his experience at breakfast the day after making a New Year’s Eve resolution to speak out and “complain”. He had to ask the waitress three times for a glass of milk for it to only be delivered after his meal was complete (80-83). Sure, he spoke up about the problem initially, but when confronted with the complaint of having to pay for the milk or have it sent back he shied away once again. The second time being on an airplane and needing to get more paper from beneath his feet but was constrained due to the empty lunch tray on his lap. Eager to remove this obstacle he spoke up and asked the stewardess to remove his tray and clear his lap. She responded with what seemed to him to be a scripted response and thought back to her earlier announcement of “If there is anything I or Miss French can do for you… please let us know” (132-133). Obviously this wasn’t true or the tray would have been removed, it was simply the script she would say to incite the idea that they would be there for your comfort. In these two experiences he spoke out, yet he didn’t continue his complaint because he felt that regardless of his helplessness, the issue would not be

resolved.
In closing, Buckley attributes society’s inability to complain on the reluctance to create negative attention and a potentially harassing situation; the expectation that someone else who suffers the same complaint will speak up; and lastly, that their complaints will be futile with no resolution to the issue at hand because we have become an autonomous nation of rhetorical scripts. Our increased sense of helplessness is at our own fault for allowing our “suppressed natural instinct to complain” to go unchecked (158-159). Our acceptance to endure the hardships and only speak out when others with the intestinal fortitude initiate the movement have led to where we are in society today. We allow things to fester until the literally explode causing havoc simply because we are non-confrontationally natured, we expect someone else to become involved first, or we simply do not believe in ourselves enough to see the complaint through to fruition.